It will not do. Really, it will not.
I narrow my attention so that it is entirely in this moment, in this place, and I summon my will. My will. I may be unpracticed with the Grimoire, but I have the magic inside me. Dada’s magic blood. I bring all my thoughts to one point, just as I did when I restored Catrin’s china. As I did when I mended Cai’s wounded arm. I pull all my strength to me until I feel the air crackle with it. I listen hard. I sniff the damp air of the chamber. With my senses at witchwalking pitch I can easily detect the presence of other beings. There are so many of them, moving and squeaking and squirming in the drains and the narrow culverts and tunnels that run in a labyrinth beneath the houses and streets of the town. I smell their warm, dirty bodies. I hear their teeth gnawing hungrily on whatever they can find. For they are hungry. Very hungry. This sudden winter has quickly brought them to near starvation. From somewhere deep within me I find the strength to overcome my own fears, my own natural repugnance. And I call to them.
Come, little brothers and sisters. Come to me, and I will give you such a feast, such a banquet … your bellies will be full tonight and your fur slick with the fresh blood of your kill.
I know Isolda will have heard me, too, but she cannot know what I have planned. Or if she does, she does not consider me capable of making it happen, for she shows no sign that she is afraid, though in truth she has ample reason to be.
Now I shift my thoughts to the wall behind her. It is centuries old, its stones pocked and water worn, its mortar crumbling. I can shift these stones. I know I can. I narrow my eyes and summon my strength, with more determination, with more ferocity, with more anger than I have ever used to summon it before. At first the task seems impossible. I redouble my efforts, yet still there is no discernable effect.
Isolda watches me with a dry smile upon her lips, amused by my apparently ineffectual struggles. Almost idly she sways this way and that, diminishing the ice that covers the floor of the chamber, so that it begins to recede. Clearly she no longer considers me a threat.
But I am.
The first stone moves barely an inch, accompanied by a small grating noise as it shifts minutely. Isolda hears the sound, but cannot detect its source. I continue. Now a second stone moves. Now another. And another. She sees what I have done and sneers.
“Do you think to bring my own house down upon me, witch-girl? Do you seriously believe yourself capable of such a thing?”
No, I let her read my thoughts, hoping it will buy me a few moments more. I do not.
“Ah! Only now you decide to communicate with me. What a shame you did not think to do so sooner. Who knows what arrangement we might have come to, had you shown some spirit of … cooperation,” says she. But neither of us believe there is any truth in her words. She walks over to one of the holes I have made in the wall, putting her head on one side to examine it.
“Poor Morgana. Such hard work, for you. Why bother? Why not just lie down and sleep. So much nicer, so much more dignified than all this futile struggling.”
At last another stone moves, this time from several feet up they wall. It dislodges with such speed and force that it flies from its place and crashes to the floor next to Isolda. Mortar and mud and stone shatter and spread to her feet. In quick succession, four more stones do the same. But the gaps they leave remain empty, nothing more than dark spaces letting in cold air and the occasional trickle of icy water. For a moment I think they have not heard me; that they will not come. I call again.
Come, little ones. Hurry, my hungry friends. Hurry to the feast!
The first grey-brown nose pokes from a hole behind Isolda, so that she does not see it. It drops from its tunnel, its skinny body and hairless tail close to the ground as it begins to circle her. More whiskers appear in the same hole, and then, quickly, myriad snouts and beady eyes begin to emerge from all the spaces I have created, so that within seconds the floor appears alive with rats. They scamper and scuttle as they pour into the chamber, raising their heads to sniff for food, exposing their long yellow teeth as they do so.
At first I think that they ignore me because I am here in spirit only, and therefore do not offer a potential source of sustenance. But I notice that they take care not to put one wet claw over the outline of the pentacle. Indeed, they avoid it as if it were drawn in fire. There are hundreds of them now, and still more stream forth from the gaps between the stones. Isolda curses and stamps her feet to shake off the first few bold ones who have already begun to nip at her toes. One, particularly large, even in its reduced state, with dense black fur, drops directly onto Isolda’s shoulder. It clings on as she grasps it by the neck and pulls at it. It is determined, digging its sharp claws into the fabric of her dress, but she wrenches it from her and hurls it across the room with such strength I hear its spine snap. Its corpse falls into the melee of its cousins, who, scenting fresh blood, fall upon it, biting and nipping. It is as if a signal has been given for the frenzy of feeding to begin. Suddenly, as if they were one many-headed beast, the rats surge forward and swarm over Isolda.
She lets out a furious scream, snatching at the rodents as they climb and crawl over her, plucking them from her to fling them this way and that with unnaturally swift and forceful movements. But there are too many, too many for her to fend off, they come at such a rate. Soon she is entirely covered in the squealing, stinking creatures, as they hang from her fingers, from her bodice and skirts, from her hair, burrowing into her clothes, biting and clawing, sensing the feast that is theirs for the taking. And still more rats tumble into the room, so that the flagstones are a writhing mass around me, revealing the shape of the star in which I crouch.
Isolda continues to shriek and rage, flinging her arms, shaking her head, kicking and staggering about, but she is completely covered with pulsating, chattering creatures who hang on with teeth and claws, taking every opportunity to bite and chew. Repulsive noises fill the air—sounds of flesh being torn and blood being slurped. As the smothered figure blunders about the room trails and spurts of blood splatter over more hungry rats which fight for a taste of what their kin have found. I watch in horror at what I have brought about. I am compelled to watch, though I fear it is a vision that will haunt my dreams for the rest of my days.
Just as it seems she will be overcome, will be pulled to the ground, savaged, and devoured by hundreds of hungry mouths, Isolda ceases her flailing and stands motionless, save for the undulation of the living fur coat she wears. She utters a long, low sound that chills my soul. It is neither a cry of pain, nor a scream of rage. It is very clearly a summoning, a calling, an asking. Of whom or of what I fear to fathom, but the temperature in the chamber drops dramatically. The discordant, rising note is sustained for an impossibly long out-breath, strong and unwavering, flat and droning, menacing beyond imagination. Even the rats seem to sense danger in the stillness that follows. Some of them drop from her body and slink away. Others pause in their frenzy. There is a small moment of total calm where all movement, all sound, all life, it seems, is stilled.
And then the beast is unleashed.
The rats still clinging to Isolda, or what was Isolda, are flung to the far reaches of the room, smashing against the stone walls. From beneath them emerges a twisting, throbbing shape that grows as it shakes and convulses, ridding itself of its parasitic passengers, contorting and enlarging until it, until she, is completely transformed. For it is no longer a woman who stands before me but a green-scaled, monstrous serpent. It raises its colossal head high, its yellow eyes glowing in the torchlight, its forked tongue flicking in and out of its cruel, lipless mouth. It fills the chamber with a deafening hissing, surely loud enough to wake the dead. The terrified rats turn and flee, scrambling over one another in their haste to escape, clawing at the wall to reach the holes through which they entered. But the giant snake strikes with deadly speed, snatching mouthfuls of the panicking creatures, swallowing them in great, wriggling gulps. In a matter of seconds the chamber is cleared, the rats gon
e, either eaten or fled. Only I remain, my spirit still imprisoned in the pentacle. And the coiling, bulging serpent, which slides silently around the room, never for one second taking its eyes from me.
It is a further shock to hear Isolda’s voice coming from this terrible apparition.
“Your actions are tiresome in the extreme, witch-girl,” says she as she slips past me.
“You must know you cannot vanquish me. Why persist in delaying the inevitable conclusion? Desist in these pointless attempts upon me. Nothing will come of your efforts. All that is required of you now is that you give in, submit to the inevitable. To the end. To me.”
The creature’s muscles ripple as it propels itself round and round, gathering speed. For a moment I think she plans to coil herself around me and crush the life from me, but I realize, of course, that in my witchwalking state she cannot harm me physically. All the evil animal strength of her repulsive form is useless against me in my spirit state. She has tried to send me to another place, to weaken me, and to tempt me with my dear father. Was it even truly him I saw? Or was it merely a trick, another spell cast by Isolda to suck me to my death? I will never be certain. What I do know is that, without my body here to destroy, there are few ways she can bring about my end. Indeed, her only option would seem to be to hold me here, captive, until I am stayed too long from my body and have not the strength to return. But how long? How long can I exist a stepping soul, disembodied and wandering? She asked me the question, but I myself do not truly know the answer. I know that I am weakening. That I feel increasingly weary. Increasingly faint. I do not have much time. I must use it wisely.
I sit, drawing my knees up under my chin, wrapping my arms tightly about myself.
You are right. I lay my thoughts clearly in front of her. I know it now. Forgive me. Have pity.
“Pity? Ha!” Saliva spits from the snake’s jaws as Isolda laughs at my pleading.
I keep my eyes cast down.
I care only for Cai, I tell her. Please, show mercy. If I … die.
“When you die. For die you will.”
Please, let him live. I open my eyes and hold the gaze of the lurid creature that bobs its great head before me. I beg you, let him live.
I have never before seen a snake laugh, nor heard such a cruel noise as this one makes.
“Beg me! You have caused me no end of trouble, Mrs. Jenkins. Were it not for you I could have won round that soft husband of yours. Could have made him mine. Then I would have been the mistress of the Ffynnon Las well, and all the power that goes with it would have been mine. I would have been invincible. I will be invincible. But I do not feel inclined to mercy, not now. Why should I? You will be dead very soon, and Cai will join you in a shared grave up at Soar-y-Mynydd chapel, and the farm will be put up for sale and I will buy it, naturally. So beg all you like, I am deaf to any request that might further delay my finally obtaining my birthright.”
I nod carefully, resigned to my fate.
Very well, says I, I cannot change what will happen. I will meet my love in the afterlife. We will be together then, and he will suffer no more.
The snake pauses in its slithering, regarding me closely.
One thing I ask. Let me not leave this life in such terror, with only the company of a creature from hell. Will you not at least return to your womanly form so that my last sight will be of something beautiful, and so that you can meet my gaze as it fades to nothing?
Isolda laughs again and the serpent begins to shimmer and twitch. I have appealed not to her humanity, nor her charity, but to her vanity, and there I have found her weakness.
With much flexing and twisting and slapping against the stones the snake diminishes and slowly shrinks and reduces until Isolda herself stands before me once more, with scarcely a scratch from the rats to show for her ordeal.
She puts a hand up to her hair, concerned that it should be in place.
I do not stand, but remain, small and still in the very center of the star. I look at Isolda, trying to keep myself from trembling, willing myself to stay awake and alert, even though I feel myself fading.
Won’t you step into the light so that I can see you properly? I ask her. You are in the shadows, so that I cannot see your face.
With only a small sigh of impatience she walks a short distance to stand between the two large sconces, the flames of the torches lending a warm glow to her handsome features.
“Quickly now, little witch-girl. Drift away and be gone. I am tired of this game,” says she, her hands upon her hips, her head on one side, watching me as a crow watches an ailing lamb.
This is my moment, my one last chance. She need only wait and I will die. But she cannot damage my body in here. In that respect I am not vulnerable. But she is.
I suck in a deep, slow breath, filling my lungs until they must surely burst. I summon all the strength of my love for Cai, all the adoration I have carried with me all these years for my father, all the love I felt for my mother, and all the wildness of the mountains. I feel magic fill my soul, feeding it, until I am aglow with it. And then I exhale. A great tumult disturbs the air inside the chamber as if a tempest were raging. My hair flies upward and outward as if billowing in a gale. My clothes are likewise disturbed. The flames on the torches flare and spit, growing in an instant to twice their size. Isolda looks about her, disconcerted. She turns her gaze back on me and with a wave of an arm sends a blow of energy to try to stop me. But I remain unharmed. Soon the room is filled with a howling, circular wind which chases round and round, faster and faster, growing in strength and ferocity, roaring as it blows, snatching up the heavy tapestries as if they were gossamer, causing them to fly and flap. And as they fly and flap they are licked by the flames of the torches. Within seconds the first one has caught fire. And then the second. And then another. Now all of them are ablaze, the racing air feeding these new, terrible fires until the entire space is a whirling mass of flame.
I hear Isolda shout oaths and curses. She rushes to the door, pulling at the handle, but I have shut it, and shut it will remain.
“No!” she screams. “No!” She runs about the room, pointlessly, for there is no other exit. Unlike me, she is here in body as well as soul. And whereas a spirit may wander at will through walls or doors, a body may not. Whereas a soul might remove itself to a place of safety without the use of stairs, a body may not. A soul will withstand the intense heat of the fire and emerge unscathed. A body will not.
Soon Isolda’s screams have turned to shrieks. I listen not with horror, nor with triumph, but with a calm acceptance, with a knowledge that I have done what I can and that Cai will be safe. And now, as the furnace engulfs every part of this stone tomb, I wait.
* * *
It is properly dark by the time Cai opens the upstairs window and rests his gun on the sill. Below, the men have reached the front garden. Under the bright moon Cai recognizes familiar faces: Edwyn Nails, Llewellyn, the Reverend Cadwaladr, and many more. Some have guns, others axes. One carries a coil of rope. Cadwaladr steps forward and hammers on the barred front door.
“Jenkins!” he bellows. “Cai Jenkins, open this door!”
Cai shifts his position carefully. Even resting the barrel of the gun as he is, it feels almost unmanageably heavy. He has always been a fair shot, but now, feeling so weak, his body wracked with pains, he wonders if he will be capable of so much as lifting the gun to fire straight.
“You cannot come in, Reverend,” he calls down, causing the mob to turn their gazes up to him.
Edwyn shakes his fist. “We’re come for Morgana, Jenkins,” he shouts, his face twisted with hatred. “Send her out!”
“This is my home.” Cai keeps his voice as level as he can and fights back a gasp as pain grips his chest. “Leave us be!”
Reverend Cadwaladr calls up to him, “You are bewitched, Mr. Jenkins. Bewitched by that creature.”
“She is not a creature, Reverend. She is my wife. A good woman.”
“She is w
icked!” yells an old man from the back of the crowd. “She has brought death to our town.”
“That is not true.” Cai shakes his head, appalled at how easily they are prepared to believe terrible things of Morgana.
Llewellyn steps forward. “People are dying because of her. She has turned the land to ice! She will have us all dead.”
“No, you’re wrong.”
“’Twas she brought the terrible sickness to us,” cries another.
“Not she!” Cai insists. “If it’s wickedness you’re looking for try that fine house on the square. Look more closely at Isolda Bowen.”
“What?” Cadwaladr is incredulous. “What nonsense is this? Mrs. Bowen is a respectable, God-fearing woman.”
“You are wrong about her, just as you are wrong about Morgana,” Cai tells them.
Edwyn won’t be put off.
“We mean to take her, Jenkins. You’d best open this door. You’re sick, m’n. She’s made you sick.”
“I’m not so enfeebled as I can’t protect my own wife. I’m warning you, stay back!” He raises his gun.
Llewellyn laughs at him, daring him. “You can’t fight all of us, Ffynnon Las.”
In reply Cai fires his gun, the blast hitting the snow-covered ground close to the rear of the crowd. The sound is cacophonous, bouncing off the frozen landscape and echoing on and on down the valley. Men leap and scatter in all directions, flinging themselves out of range.
“You’ll have to kill me before I let you take her,” Cai shouts down at them. “Are you prepared to do that? Are you, Reverend? She’s done nothing wrong, I tell you.”
The men clamber cautiously to their feet but keep their distance. The reverend puts up his hands, half a gesture of surrender, half of prayer.
“We mean you no harm, Cai Jenkins. We will leave you now, so that you may have time to consider. We will return for her. We must return.” For once the stout man’s voice falters and breaks. “God will not allow such wickedness to thrive. He is punishing us all, Jenkins. My own darling daughters…!” He cannot finish the sentence.
The Winter Witch Page 34